NetApp's Leadership Ambitions

NetApp is keen to overtake competition like EMC, HP et al to establish itself as the leader in the realm of data storage. To achieve this ambition, it has evolved a multi-pronged approach, offering new products as well as services to make the globe NetApp enthusiastic.

According to studies, data grows at approximately 60 to 80% annually, of which 6% data becomes inactive. Yet this data must be archived for regulatory purposes, protected from data loss, theft (inside and outside), and searched and retrieved on demand.

The latest additions to NetApp’s storage systems portfolio are the FAS6030 and FAS 6070. Offering up to 420 TB and 504 TB of storage respectively, the products extend massive scalability to data centers. Offering ease of use, they free up IT administrators to concentrate on other matters.

They also offer high availability and accessibility of application data - both in instances of planned and unplanned downtime, while its modular approach gives enterprises the flexibility and dynamism to adapt to business changes.

Ideal for large-scale storage consolidation, they can support hundreds of SAN and NAS based applications. Also featured are FlexVol for creating flexible volumes to reduce need for spare capacity, FlexShare - a feature for changing priorities of various data, Snapshot and RAID-DP for data protection. The price for 6030 and 6070 (4 TB) is Rs1.5 crore.

It also introduced an enhanced NetApp Manageability Software family and new fiber channel SAN capabilities. “The enhancements consist of tools to manage an organization’s enterprise-wide data, offer effective data protection, tight integration of storage with applications and operating system, and effective data protection, decreasing cost of managing storage infrastructure and increasing IT productivity. NeApp is also offering support for 4 GB fiber channel SAN, the latest SAN development,” informed Soumitra Agarwal, Marketing Manager, NetApp India.

To address its customers’ needs more, Rapid Deployment Services for Storage Implementation has also been introduced. The service takes customers deploying NetApp products right up to production stage, taking care of all testing, integration and configuration issues.

Finally, 24×7 Support Services (inbuilt with the 6070) have also been announced.

While many believe CIO's role is evolving and that he's occupying a key place in the boardroom, a recent study brings to light that more than half of the CIO, CTO or IT admin staff (55%) are not thanked by colleagues for carrying out essential IT tasks on their behalf.